Mother Earth Brewing uses Brewers Association Logo on all packaging

Mother Earth Brewing uses Brewers Association Logo on all packaging

Craft breweries are really starting to flourish and it’s actually hard to keep an up-to-date count with new breweries constantly on the horizon. As North Carolina continues to grow so does the rest of the US and the Big Macro brands do not like losing market share.

A craft brewer is defined as a small and independent operation with annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less. No more than 25 percent of the craft brewery can be owned or controlled by an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft brewer.

In 2011, small and independent craft brewers saw their industry grow 13 percent by volume; in the first half of 2012, volume grew by an additional 12 percent. Meanwhile, the overall beer industry was down 1.3 percent by volume and domestic non-craft were down 5 million barrels in 2011.

With all the tremendous success and rapid growth of craft brewers and the fact that many beer lovers are turning away from mass-produced light beer, the large brewers have been seeking entry into the craft beer marketplace. A lot of the “Big Boys” have started to try and enter the market place with imitation beers they are labeling as craft. When you are drinking Blue Moon Belgian Wheat Beer, you are not drinking a craft beer, but you don’t know that because there is no reference that it is made by SABMiller. The same goes for Shock Top, a brand that is 100 percent owned by Anheuser-Bush InBev.

Everyone remembers the press release that the Brewers Association released this past December talking about this very thing call Craft VS. Crafty?

Well, after that article was release by the Brewers Association and independent blogger came out with a remedy. He suggested that craft brewers stand together and start putting the Brewers Association (BA) logo on all their packaging.

So at Mother Earth, we did just that. After talking with the Brewers Association and having them give us permission to do that, we are happy to say we support the BA on all our packaging and are really thrilled to be one of the first true craft breweries to do so.

Mother Earth Brewing was founded by Stephen Hill and Trent Mooring in 2008. Soon after, they added Brew Master, Josh D. Brewer to the team and within months, an old downtown building was repurposed into a brewery. Mother Earth Brewing began to bottle and keg their beer in October of 2009. Today, just over three and half years after production of their first batch of beer, Mother Earth Brewing counts on a team of fifteen people to keep up with production. Mother Earth Brewing enjoys over 2,500 accounts, and can be found in bars, restaurants, supermarkets and specialty stores across North Carolina, Georgia, and Washington, DC. Mother Earth Brewing is the first Gold L.E.E.D. ® certified production brewery in the United States. More information can be found at www.motherearthbrewing.com. For more information about LEED®, please visit www.usgbc.org/leed.